Jury selection for alleged fugitive rapist begins

John Nickerson

Updated 10:32 pm, Saturday, August 17, 2013

STAMFORD -- Jury selection began Wednesday for a former Stamford security guard who skipped bond before standing trial for the 1989 rape of a fellow security guard in a Ludlow Street building.

Assistant State's Attorney David Applegate and defense attorney Joseph Jaumann spent the day Wednesday in a fourth-floor courtroom while choosing two men and two women to sit in judgment of Richardson Victor when testimony in the trial begins on Aug. 26. Victor was assisted through the day by a French Creole intrepreter as Judge Richard Comerford presided over the selection.

Victor, 45, formerly of 163 Spruce St., Stamford, is charged with failure to appear in court and first-degree sexual assault, and has been jailed in lieu of a $200,000 court appearance bond since his capture in Florida in October 2011.

Police say Victor fled the state and took up residence in Florida. He was gainfully employed as a cook and taxi driver when he was extradited back to Connecticut to face the charges again.

According to court records, Victor was supposed to show up for trial at the old Stamford courthouse -- where the court's current parking structure now stands -- on Oct. 25, 1990.

He was arrested in January of that year on a charge of first-degree sexual assault and spent most of the year in jail, unable to post a court appearance bond of $35,000. Later in July, the bond was reduced to $10,000 and he was released.

A day after he did not show up for trial, officer Jon Fontneau -- now the chief of the Stamford Police Department -- went to Victor's Spruce Street apartment to find him. But the trail was already cold.

Talking to a roommate, Fontneau found that Victor had sold his car to his mechanic and left most of his belongings at the residence, according to a 1990 police report detailing his felony charge of failure to appear at court. The roommate told Fontneau that Victor rented a car -- subsequently found at John F. Kennedy International Airport -- and flew back to his native Haiti, the report said.

According to Victor's arrest warrant signed by then Sgt. Robert Nivakoff, who also later became police chief, but retired in 2012, a 26-year-old woman went to Stamford Hospital emergency room on Dec. 12, 1989, saying that she had been raped earlier that morning.

That afternoon the woman, whose name is not mentioned in the affidavit, was interviewed by Nivakoff and said she had been raped by Victor.

The woman said that she had been employed for three weeks as a security guard, and that she and Victor, then 21, who worked a different shift, were assigned to a building at 333 Ludlow St.

When the woman was making her rounds on the second floor of the building at 3:30 a.m., she entered a men's room where Victor was lying in wait, court records show.

While hidden under a sink, the woman said Victor grabbed her, pulled her to the ground and raped her.

Jaumann, who has filed a motion to have the failure to appear charge thrown out because he said police never entered Victor's name into the FBI's National Crime Information Center to be sent out as a wanted fugitive, said his client was ready for trial.

"He continues to deny the allegations and is looking forward to to trial," Jaumann said.